 Welon nhw'n gweithio, yng Nghymru a'r gyfaflach a'r cyfwyr yn ni'r ffordd i'r wneud. Welf yn gweithio ar y Sgruneg Llywun i'r Gwyllgor, y Gwyllgor, y Metw Llywun i'r Cynghwmwyll. Wrth fy nghylch yn Llywun i'r Cynghwm, ac rai'n gwneud hynny oedd y Cynghwm. Mae wir ydych chi'n gweithio ar yr ymdwyll, mae'n gweithio i ceisio. AMGwyl yn gwneud eich gweithio ar eich gweithreit, ac mae'n gweithbwyd os bydd y mynd arlwy yna. Mae'r cerddor yn fawr yn llwyddo'n gyfballiad ac yn cyffredinol yn dweud o'r cyfaldiad o'r Serych yn cynnig, ddim blaen i ddweud y cerddor. RAFFL yn gweithio'r llychdogion nesaf ddweud o'r swyffordd ar cosig. Felly ddim ddych yn gweithio ddweud o'u cyfaldiad yr hyn syddi, Those ddweud yr lle gadwig yn cyfaldiol o��d yn gweithio cyfaldiolaeth. Maeth rhai rhawer o odenne chi i'w meddwl yn aciaidd sydd y ddweud o'r maint o er incapablele barsgwrt? Rhawer, chael i'w meddwl c dal iddo perbydd sydd wedi'i suppu'r peth o'n gyffredig a nu iawn moetr? R RBW? R RBW wedi bod amma eich traf will conference. any other devices you have so that they do not interrupt proceedings and if you have one available please use a headset and hold the microphone close to your mouth. When you are invited to address the meeting please make sure your microphone is switched on. When you finish addressing the meeting please turn off your microphone immediately and while speaking please speak clearly and slowly and please do not talk over or interrupt anyone. Please note that if we do need to vote on any item we shall do so via the microphones but only those present in the chamber can vote or propose or second recommendations. Committee members present in the chamber are now invited each of you to introduce yourselves. Members after I call your name please turn on your camera and microphone, wait two seconds and say your name so that your presence may be known. As I said earlier my name is Councillor Gwynfield Chamberlain and I am the Member for Hardwick. My vice-chair is Councillor Judith Rippith. Could I ask members now to introduce themselves and may I start with Councillor Gwynfield. Thank you Chairman. I am Councillor Anna Brydnam, one of the members for Milton and Water Beach Ward. Thank you. Councillor Martin Cahn. Councillor Martin Cahn, one of the members for Huston-Limpington and Orchard Park. Thank you. Councillor Sarah John Johnson. Sarah is not present. She is remote. Okay. Councillor Gavin Clayton. Hello I am Councillor Gavin Clayton and I am one of the three councillors representing Camborn. Thank you. Councillor Graham Cohn I believe will be joining us later. He is stuck at his work in Avonbrox. Councillor Dr Clare Daunton. Yes, good afternoon. I am Councillor Clare Daunton and I am one of the members for the Fenditon and Vaughan Ward. Thank you. Councillor Peter Thane. Peter is not here. Thank you. Councillor Sally Ann Hart. Hello I am Sally Ann Hart, Councillor Sally Ann Hart and I am one of the members for the Melbourne Ward. Thank you. Councillor Jeff Harvey. Yes, thank you. Councillor Jeff Harvey, I am the member for Portiaan Ward. Thank you. Councillor Steve Hunt. Yes, Councillor Steve Hunt, one of the members for Huston-Limpington and Orchard Park. Thank you. Councillor Aiden Van Dewire. I believe I made another one. I am the member for Burrington Ward. Thank you. Councillor Dr Richard Williams is not present. Councillor Eileen Wilson is also not present. Yes, of course. I am Councillor Judith Riffith, my vice-chair. Good evening. I am Councillor Judith Riffith. I am one of the members for Milton and Water Beach Ward. We are also joined in the Chamber by Councillor Tumi Hawkins and Councillor John Williams. You are very welcome. Thank you for joining us. Are there any other members who I have not yet called upon, but I can however confirm that the meeting is quorate. If at any time a member leaves the meeting would they please make that fact known to me so that it can be recorded in the future. Item 2 on the agenda is Apologies for Absence. Ian, can I ask Arthur, have we received any apologies for absence this evening please? We have one apology from Councillor Cathcart and his substitute is Councillor Clayton. May I just add to your note about Councillor Cohn. Councillor Williams, Richard Williams, he is I think caught in the same traffic jam. So he will be a bit late as well. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Item 3 on the agenda is Declarations of Interest. Do any members have interest to declare in relation to any item of business on this agenda? If an interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting please would you raise it at that point. May I ask are there any? Councillor Bradman. Thank you, Chair. I'm a local member for part of the area encompassed by the North East Cambridge site which is our item 7 on the agenda. On that note I'm also a member for the same ward which encompasses the item 7 item. Thank you very much. Those are duly noted. Are there any other declarations? No, thank you very much indeed. In that case can we move on to item 4 on the agenda which is the minutes of the meeting held on the 20th of July. Can we go through them page by page for errors or omissions please? Page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4. Thank you. I will duly sign those in due course. We also have the minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday the 21st of September. That is page 5 in your compendium. Page 6, page 7, page 8, page 9, page 10, page 11 and page 12. With that is it your wish that I should sign? Councillor Daunton my apologies. I just wanted to make a comment on the minutes to say how pleased I was to see a detail that's been captured in the minutes. It was a long detail meeting and it was really good to see it captured in the minutes and to have that as a record actually for our own use in future. Yes, very helpful. Thank you for that comment. With that I will in due course sign them as a true record unless anyone objects to that. No, thank you all very much indeed. Item 5 on the agenda is public questions and we do have a question from Mr Daniel Foughton. So Mr Foughton, I would like you to please briefly ask your question please. Yes, thank you chair for the opportunity to address the committee today. Just within the past half hour the fuselin consortium has been advised by council that the matters to be raised today in this question should instead be referred to the police for a formal investigation. As such I'm going to decline to ask a question today but I do want to state that I appreciate being given the opportunity to ask a question and I appreciate that Councillor Hawkins took the time to attend the meeting to answer it and I wanted to think her for that and I wanted to apologise for not being able to give notice that the question would be withdrawn earlier but thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. Can we move on then to item 6 on the agenda which is the general fund medium term financial strategy and I'd like to invite Councillor John Williams to introduce the paper please. Sorry. Before we, the stream had stopped for a moment. John, over to you. Okay, thank you chair. Actually I mean Peter and I are hearing sort of listening mode with this and this has gone through council. As you know the government spending review will be announced in a couple of weeks time and obviously it's difficult to judge in the current economic circumstances what that review will be. We can surmise that the government will be looking for reducing the public debt and that could mean obviously reducing support for local government or restricting local government but it's very difficult at this moment in time to foresee what will happen. But we are both happy to take questions but in particular we're happy to hear any suggestions you may have on the MTFS at this stage and Peter will answer any questions that you have technical questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Members, Councillor Brandon. Just a quick one. Just for the sake of the clerk of the meeting to register that Councillor Richard Williams has arrived. Believe me. I hope the traffic was not too bad. Members, questions? Councillor Daunton. Thank you. I was just wondering if Councillor Williams might talk us through the plans for inflation and particularly for possible wage inflation. I'll just give a brief overview of the financial strategy if I may and then I'll come to some specific questions that I think were raised previously and also your question there Councillor Daunton. So the medium term financial strategy is looking at the period up till 2026-27. So we're looking at a relatively lengthy period of five years and five years in local government finance is a very long time as has been seen over the last few years. I think the main things to look at are probably the tables within the report. So if we go through the table on what we believe our resources will be available and what we believe our spending is going to be. I think that's on page 17. So on page 17, yes, there you go. So it shows you there are estimated resources. So we've had a look at council tax, we've estimated where we think the tax base will go. The assumption we've made at the moment is that there will be, continue to be a £5 increase allowed in the settlement. We've then got retained business rates. Now you'll notice on that line that the expected business rates for next year is rather higher than in future years. For a number of years now there have been suggestions that the funding of local government will be reviewed and one of the parts of that review is to completely change the way business rates is distributed. It's likely that when that occurs that district councils like ourselves will see a reduction in funding and funding will then move to counties because there's been an undertaking made in the past that the fair funding review will look to address the problems with social care funding. Now we do know that Boris Johnson announced recently the increase in national insurance contributions. So obviously that longer term that's going to be part of the solution but my suspicion is that that won't be the complete solution and that there still will be some changing in the fair funding review to address that. New homes bonus, we've got £1 million in for £23.24 onwards. We don't really know exactly what's going to happen here. The government had introduced a review of the new homes bonus scheme as it was. The proposal was to change that significantly so I think what we're likely to see is a reduction in the sort of figures of £2.5 to £3 million that we have been receiving down to around about one. We don't really know but what we do know is it probably won't be nil now as we had previously assumed because the consultation has closed and we're expecting a response in November when the spending assessment comes forward. So that's where we think we are with our funding. When I produced the expenditure side of things I was reasonably confident that on that side of things things were relatively stable but that is anything but the case now. Again, the strategy was produced over the summer and we were thinking that 2% inflation was probably reasonable to assume. We haven't seen high levels of inflation but obviously since then we've seen the issues with increases in fuel and obviously that has a knock-on effect to other costs that the authority has to bear in relation to supplies, services, equipment and those sort of things. It's a little bit difficult to ascertain quite what is going to happen with inflation going forward. Some commentators are suggesting it may well be a short term effect. I've looked at other commentators suggested it may be longer term so it's quite difficult one to decide how we're going to deal with this in the medium term financial strategy. Whilst I thought it was difficult enough trying to assess the resources that were going to be available to us it's now become more difficult to assess how much our costs are going to be as well. So I think that's something we're going to have to grapple with over the next couple of months as the budget comes together. I think that was your question Councillor Daunton, around inflation. It's a very good question and I think any insights we can gain from experts in the field of inflation would be quite helpful but I'm not sure there can be more than I am or anybody else to be quite honest. I think the message is there's a lot of uncertainty around the level. The only bit of good news I think really at the moment is that the fair funding review does look as if it's been pushed down the road again. We had expected initially in 2021 it was delayed till 21-22. It now looks pretty certain it's going to be delayed till 23-24. However in some of the other commentaries I've been looking at there's a suggestion that the government will introduce a three year funding programme which may actually suggest it's being kicked in further down the road. But again I think when we get to November we will know that and we'll know a lot more on that. So I think that's probably all I can say in relation to the assumptions and forecasts that we have there. I did have a couple of questions that were sent through prior to the meeting. Would you like me to answer those now? Yes please do. So there's a question about the savings we've included within the document. We have only included ongoing savings at this stage so we haven't put in any one off savings for 22-23. Those will obviously come to life as part of the budget process and as those come through we will then add those in as appropriate. Book about inflation, business rates. I mean this is a big question business rates really because whilst business rates came in, whilst 50% of the tension of business rates locally came in in 13-14 there have been so many changes since then. We've got to the stage really that the business rate system does need a thorough review. Now whether it will be abolished or whether there will be a review, I'm not entirely sure. The fair funding review suggested we would originally move from 50% local attention to 100% local attention. They've now said probably 75% local attention but again if that's part of the fair funding review I suspect that's probably a little bit down the road before that gets resolved. I think it's fair to say it is a difficult nut to crack. I think successive governments have tried to do something with business rates to make it fair. I think pretty much everybody would accept that the current business rates regime isn't particularly fair in that we're getting rates from businesses that have property. Those businesses that don't work from business premises aren't paying business rates so there does seem an inequality there which I would suggest needs to be addressed. We have historically done really well from business rates here. We're in the top 10 in the country for growing our business rates baseline and it's fairly obvious why I guess with the development that we've seen and the businesses we have on the science park etc. So I think any move away from business rates I'd be a bit nervous about in terms of our financing given how well we've done. I mean there has been some talk in the past about a system of taxing profits locally. I'm not quite sure exactly how that would work but I mean that's just been a suggestion so whether that's anything that's really being seriously considered I'd probably doubt it at this stage. But yeah I think business rates does need reforming and I think everybody would accept that. I would like any reform I'd like to see a good consultation that takes everything on board and that we don't have something done to us that actually is a detriment to the district. I think there's a question about the impact on Brexit. It's difficult to be sure on that one. We could argue some of the pressure we've seen on inflation etc is as a result of Brexit or is it Covid or what is it really. So my guess would be the impact on Brexit would be to see an increase in costs but how much you could put down to Brexit I'm not sure. Whether there's any questions or comments or thoughts about or any advice in fact on what's going to happen with inflation because it would be great to know what to do. But we will obviously have a look at what commentators are saying seeing what the trends look like. I hope you're not asking me because my crystal ball has run out of fuel. I do however have a couple of requests if I may. The first relates to the tables that you show. Where they split over a page could we carry the titles through to the next page as well so that you can see. You don't have to keep flipping back to make sure that you're still looking at the right column. Alternatively keep the tables on one page either would be helpful. I think the thing that interests me would particularly your comments in relation to business rates and the deficit impact of one and a quarter million this year. And then goes on to say the financial forecast assumes neither a surplus or deficit in the period to 26 27. Can you just explain exactly what that means. It's on page 20 paragraph 41. Are we assuming that we have a deficit impact of one and a quarter million for each of the years through to 26 27. I'm just not clear on that 41 is the final sentence. The final forecast assumes neither a surplus or deficit in the period to 26 27. While you're just looking at that I'm pleased to say that councillors Peter Fane and Graham Cohen have joined us. Welcome gentlemen and similarly Richard William, councillor Williams welcome. Did you find it paragraph 41. Yes I appreciate it. So as part of the process we'll obviously try to plug the gap that we've currently got. We're suggesting there's a gap of about 4.489 million. So we're going to be trying to identify plugging that gap as soon as we possibly can. Clearly the transformation program that is being under way at the moment that's just going to be a significant contribution to that. So we're expecting that to meet about half of those half of that gap. So we're going to need to concentrate on how we plug the rest of that gap. But equally having said that the gap that we're reporting now has probably already changed based on what we've just discussed. So I think there's still quite a bit of work to be done to identify what we believe that gap now is and how we're going to tackle that. Fine thanks but can I be clear are we expecting to have a collection fund deficit of one and a quarter million for each of the years through to 26 27. So the collection fund deficit is just for the one year at the moment. So each year we reassess it and rely on the big surface or deficit depending on how collection actually goes compared to our estimates. So that's a one off that one. I have one further point and that relates to the paragraph 57 which is the COVID-19 costs. And it's the very last bullet point which refers to reduced income aligned to business confidence, brackets, commercial rents and planning applications. Can you quantify that? I've got it on page 24 of my pack. Under subsection 7 COVID-19 costs. Right. So it has been assumed that there will be some additional costs included in 2020. So we have obviously assumed there will be some additional costs in 2020. So what was the question? It was in relation to the final bullet point, reduced income aligned to business confidence. Are you able to quantify that? I think that's something we'll need to quantify over the next couple of months. I mean, we have seen some reductions in 2021-22. Yeah, we'll need to assess that as the budget continues. In all fairness, we are, I believe, looking at the first draft. And we will also see further updates of this. Probably what I should have said is that we've changed the way we do that this year. We've produced a draft right at the start of the budget process, which gives us an idea of the sort of gap so that we know what we're working towards. However, as the budget process continues, we'll need to refine this probably more than once, I would suggest. So that when we get through to February and the budget is agreed, we'll have probably quite a different view of it. Yeah, that's a good point. Thank you very much. Councillor Clayton. Thank you, Chair. Reading this and listening today, and generally the political atmosphere at the moment, I feel like I'm living in a copy of the Emperor's New Clothes. And somebody's got to stand up and point and go, he's got no bloody clothes on, excuse my language. So I'm wondering, to avoid doing that, are there examples, sorry, that's not meant to be directed at any individual or it's a general feeling I'm getting of the uncertainties that people are having to deal with. And trying to make these predictions for five years, which is nigh impossible, I would have thought, with any real confidence and solidity behind it. So I'm wondering, are there people in your position, Peter, the heads of finance or the local authorities, I'm taking it you have some sort of network. Are there examples where there are local authorities who feel that they have a more certain base on which to base their finances? What's the kind of best practice or best models that are out there? Is there anything that we can glean from them, that we can introduce into our own forecasting systems? I think the reality is that all authorities are facing the same issues that we have. Council tax is probably the most stable source of it, our income now. We've pretty much got control of that, apart from the fact that there's a capping level that's already government have introduced it. If you want to increase it by more than 1.99% or £5, then you have to have a referendum. But other than that at least we've got control over that. Business rates, I just don't know what's going to happen there. I mean we do have a Cambridge group of finance officers we're meeting in a couple of weeks time. And we are going to be talking about budgets and the sort of inflation factors we might use. We do always have a bit of a discussion around this, whether we'll reach a conclusion or not, I'm not so sure. But certainly there's that. There's also one or two commentators out there that's quite close to central government. We use a guy who works for an organisation called Pixel. I think he talks to MHC or whatever they call themselves these days. He talks to them on a regular basis. He has some insight into what's happening. So he helps us with some of our forecasts both here and more widely in Cambridge. And he often has a bit more insight into, certainly into the funding side from central government than perhaps we have individually. So that's always quite helpful. So yeah there are groups and people we talk to but again they're basing a lot of their information on discussions they've had. So they've probably got a little bit better insight than myself and others. But again still so much uncertainty there unfortunately. Thank you. Stephen Kelly would like to comment. So I'm going to go to Stephen next and then we have three questions within the room. Stephen over to you. Thank you chair and apologies for the lighting. I'm sitting in the back of my car in Cambridge at the moment. But hopefully you can see me. It was just really responding to your question about forecasting the effects of COVID. And just to reassure you what we have been doing in the planning service. And it's very much an ongoing process is looking at the anticipated applications that we think are coming forwards both in Southcams and the city over the through things like our planning performance agreements. But also the discussions that we're having with developers. And we're constantly in a sense revising our forecasts about when those fees and when those applications are going to come in. At this moment in time in Southcams the planning application fee income because we took some very pessimistic views about forecasts last year because of COVID is tracking slightly better than we anticipated. But obviously as we begin to move forward and setting the budget for next year, we are keeping under review some of those assumptions. We've had a bit of a boom in household planning applications, but on the major applications where you get these very sizable and therefore quite lumpy payments. We're tracking that very carefully and obviously checking in with with developers. So I did want to reassure you that we can't impact whether or not if there's an economic downturn, those developers ultimately put an application in. But certainly the team in the shared planning service is tracking and engaging with those developers to try and understand it. And I think the point of the note in Peter's paper is really to reflect that question mark that still sits around some of those expectations, notwithstanding reasonably good performance on a year in our forecast for this year that we hope will continue. Because obviously development industry active is good for jobs and activities for people across Southcams. But I just wanted to offer some reassurance about what we're doing in planning to try and at least have the most correct position, but it would be right to highlight it as a risk. Thank you. Councillor Richard Williams. Thank you chair. Apologies if you went through this before I arrived. But I just wanted to ask a question about the rising council tax on page 17 in that table in our pack. And across the period it's predicted to go up by what I make around 22% in total. It's about 5% I think a year every year up to 2027. I was wondering if either Councillor Williams or Mr Maddox could just give us an idea of how that's made up. So what portion of that sort of 5% annual rise it looks like is an increase in the base and which is an increase in the actual charge because it wasn't quite clear to me from reading the documents how the rise broke down. Thank you. I think that means you can. Yeah, I was just trying to think that I've got those figures to hand. I probably haven't actually here but I will have back in the office. So there's three factors here. There's obviously the £5 increase, the increase in the council tax base. We've just revisited the increase in the council tax base for a next financial year. We've had another look at that and it looks roughly in line with the figures we've got in here still. There's also another factor is something that will be coming forward fairly soon around council tax for convention. So this work being done about increasing the tax base and that should increase the income from council tax base as a result we're doing with other districts and indeed the county council around single persons discount and things like that. So a bit of additional income has been fracked in from that as well but I can get the exact figures and I'll send it round if that's okay. That would be very helpful. Thank you. Councillor Martin. I had intended to ask a question about the possibility of abolishing business space which has been mooted around in government at the moment. But you've given a good explanation on that but I did wonder when you were talking about council tax as a source and business rates as a source and you said that we were in the top 10 in the country regarding business rates. Are we much more exposed than many other local authorities and how does that, what position are we in compared with that? Yeah so when I say we're in the top 10, we're in the top 10 as regards growth on business rates since 1314. So that does leave us a bit more exposed. I have actually spoken to a number of other authorities in a similar position to us such as Chairwell is another one that's in the top 10 and Rugby is another one. So there's a number of authorities that have got sort of growth areas on business rates and obviously we're a bit concerned about what might happen with business rates. So there's certainly an intention when things become clear to try and get a group together to talk about how best to try and protect the council's position in relation to business rates. Yeah, it is interesting because I was talking to the person I spoke to, spoke about earlier and he was talking about the abolition of business rates. It sort of comes on the agenda and then oh it's all too hard and it disappears and it comes back again. I sort of feel we do need to, this does need to be grasped now. I think we get to the stage where it has got quite difficult to justify and it's been happening over a number of years with all these reliefs and things that have been added into the equation that's made it that much more difficult. A to predict and B it's just made it so difficult to estimate as well and it's pretty unfair. So I think there is a, I'm hoping there's finally a move to do something with business rates but we need to make sure we protect south camps position in regard to the revenue that it gets. So whatever we can do to make sure that the replacement doesn't make us financially worse off the better. So we're going to see something we need to keep a good sign on. Councillor Jeff Harvey. Thank you, chef. First off, point out a rather obvious typo at the bottom of page 24. It says there's more certainty than ever about long term funding for local government. I think that should be more uncertainty, rather obvious. But the main question was really moving to page 18, paragraph 28. We're sort of putting quite a lot of store by the transformation program to bring savings of two million. So it just occurred to me that I suppose a pitfall might be that you would assume a saving based on a status quo in terms of the level of service provided. And I suppose a pitfall might be that actually some of that two million will be eaten up because there are service level pressures in some departments which might erode those savings. And I just wondered what position there was. Yes, so as part of this budget process, we're going to need to assess when that two million pounds worth of savings are going to fall. Because at the moment, the 4.489 with protein doesn't include any of that. So part of the budget process will be identifying when that two million will fall. But as we've said earlier, there are clearly pressures in the opposite direction, more in that direction. So it suggests for me as I sit here now that the 4.489 million has grown. So we need to assess how we're going to tackle that. Let's say that the two million I believe is achievable based on what I know. I'm just not entirely sure over what time period that will be realised. And I think it's probably over the next two years or so we're probably looking at as the service reviews continue. Councillor Peter Fein. Thank you, Chair. I hesitate to intervene having arrived late, but I think I've just about caught up now. I was concerned to hear that we're relying on I think the firm whilst Pixar, who I thought made cartoon films, perhaps a different company, who seemed to be talking to the department. It seems to me, in view of the criticism that the department has had, including in particular from the Treasury Select Committee, about what's called a laissez-faire attitude to council finance. And the fact that there are some councils much worse off than ourselves who may actually become the responsibility of the department one way or the other. It does seem to me extraordinary that particularly on business rates, which is such a significant risk in this, we're not able to get more reliable guidance from government if not on their exact intentions, at least on how council should cater for and plan for that, bearing in mind our obligations to submit a balanced budget. It's Pixar, it's not Pixar, as you've probably, although Pixar won't know that one. So, I mean, the Pixar, the person there, I mean, he does a lot of research, he speaks to people, so he gets a feel for what's happening. But yeah, I mean, we don't really know what's going to happen with business rates. I think it's probably fair to say we're starting the current regime probably for at least next year, probably longer than that. Given that they're saying we're going to potentially get a three-year settlement, which is good news because at least it allows us to a little bit more forward planning with a little bit more certainty. So, my guess is that if we see anything drastic happen with business rates, it's going to be two or three years down the line now. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is good news, really. I would like more certainty, but I do accept that this is such a difficult nut to crack, it seems. And I think there have been calls for reforming business rates for at least five years, if not since it first came to 50% local retention in 2013-14. Thank you. I have no further speakers, and I think if I were to sum this up, I could only say that the only certainty in this is that there is a huge amount of uncertainty. And I think it will take time, but if I might just say a word of thanks for bringing this forward, we were asked to consider a comment which I believe that we have fulfilled that request. I am incredibly grateful for the fact that you bought this to us at this time, so that members are now fully aware of the challenges that the council faces going forward in understanding exactly what kind of financial position we'll be in in a few months' time. Personally, I'm glad I don't have to budget five months ahead, let alone five years, because this is perhaps, in my experience, the most uncertain times that we've had for a very, very long time. So I think we all understand the challenges. We wish you well. We are asked to acknowledge the protected changes in service spending and the overall resources available and to review and comment on the refreshed medium term financial strategy. And I think I can safely say that we've done that and we wish you well going forward in putting this together. And we look forward to seeing the final document into your course. Thank you. Thank you. Just to sum up, to say that whilst there's a lot of uncertainty, this council is in a good financial position. Yes. And as Councillor Fane said earlier, there are a lot of authorities in a much worse position than we are. Yeah, indeed. Absolutely. So, thank you very much. Let us move on to agenda item seven. Can I just say from the outset that this is obviously an in-principle commitment to delivery of the area action plan. At this stage, the planning issues which will derive from this will be coming to us at a later stage. So I think at the moment we should probably concentrate our minds on any financial aspects of this and look at the planning issues at a later date when we see the actual documents coming forward in due course. I suspect that that will probably be either much later this year or early into next year. But perhaps I can ask Councillor John Williams to introduce the document. John. Yeah, thank you Chairman. You may wonder why it's me introducing this and not to me. And this is for that very reason you've just explained that this is to do with compulsory purchase. It's a technical matter. It's basically saying in order for us to demonstrate that the area action plan is deliverable, that we need to show that we have in place the apparatus, the process if necessary to compulsory purchase in order to take that AAP forward, whatever that is following consultation. So that's why I'm presenting this and not to me as a lead cabinet lead for planning. I mean it is basically at this stage it is showing intent principally to the land owners that will be affected, that this council has the means and the apparatus to bring together the land that's necessary to see that the AAP is carried out. So there's not much more to say on that. And obviously I think Steve will be happy to answer any questions on the other aspects of this. Thank you members. Councillor Stathart. Thank you chair. I now pre-meeting two days ago I think we did end up discussing a number of things that were planning issues until we really looked and thought actually this is only about CPOs. I was wondering whether the title could be amended to make that clear or is it a standard form of words that we have to use. Well this is obviously for this committee but I'm sure we'll take on both the fact that in future maybe it should be more to do with the technical commitment to deliver the AAP rather than a planning strategy behind the AAP. However you know I think it isn't and Stephen could explain this but we need to have an imprincipal you know that's that's the technical term in order to deliver the AAP. So in effect the title is correct although I accept that to a lay person it may mean something else. Stephen would you like to comment on that? Well if I can ask perhaps easiest to ask not least because he's not in the dark like me chair I can ask Matthew Paterson to comment. As Councillor Williams said it relates to the ambition that I'm sure everybody has in terms of the feedback that we've received around a comprehensive rather than a piecemeal approach but perhaps Matthew can explain. Good evening everyone. Good evening chair. So just to explain why that's titled as it is compulsory purchase order is a sort of last tool of resort if you like as well. So in essence where you seeking to assemble land you still have to undertake that through normal market processes and practices until such time as you hit a barrier really and only then do you. Necessarily need to use your CPI powers and there are restrictions around those as well. So that's why it's titled the way it is. What we could do chair is clarify if it's helpful we can look at how we can clarify that. Obviously the matter needs to go forwards to cabinet and we'll perhaps see if we can reflect that more clearly. But I think in terms of the the recommendation and the resolution that we require ultimately from cabinet we've had advice from council in terms of what that needs to look like. Although if there is time before we publish the cabinet agenda I think it's due shortly to look at whether we can expand the title to perhaps add almost a sub title to it. We will do so if we can. Thank you very much. I'm going to come to councillor Bretton first. Thank you chair. Knowing the complexities of land ownership in this area some of which is in the city some of which is in South Cams some of it is Milton Parish some of it is in private ownership. I recognise the need for this sort of in principle commitment to be arranged and agreed so it makes perfect sense to me and I'm fully supportive. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much chairman. My point was very similar to councillor Bradnams. I would guess I suppose the question I've got is this is a fairly common thing when you've got development of this scale and lots of different land ownership that you would need to have some sort of principle set. Obviously if CPOs came forward in the future they would be individually looked at anyway. So I think it's fair to have the principle in given the scale of development and the complexity with land ownership I would agree. But I suppose my question would be this is quite a common thing with big developments anyway I just thought. I assume you did. Councillor Peter Thane. Thank you chair. Just a relatively simple question doesn't perhaps relate to the core of this. Paragraph 24 just drawing attention to the significant new housing 40% of all homes to be affordable the title of that paragraph is housing that is truly affordable. I assume that if we're talking about something that is truly affordable that might involve some capital commitment by the council since the government's definition of affordable might not meet that term. John. Yes thank you that refers to one of the principles of our business plan not which is to the goal is to have housing that is truly affordable to live in. It doesn't directly relate to the AAP. It's just the title of that section of the business plan which this is aligned with. Okay sorry. Councillor Benderloch. Thank you very much. This report and some of the discussion about it has implied that this is something we have to be obliged to do in order to progress with the AAP. But it seems to me this is a hugely positive thing to do to set out in part of a strategy for delivering development like this and also our own commitment to a willingness to use what powers we have to deliver this. So I think that the excellent thing that should accompany all planning applications approvals regardless of the size. Not just because when we have made a positive decision to allocate or to give approval it's something that we have decided is in the public industry should happen. So therefore what we delivered. I would note in particular that as an aside that this is clearly dependent on the what treatment works being moved. So we're not at this point committing to deliver that but we're committing to deliver the AAP if that other thing happens. So which is very clearly set out here. Councillor Martin Khan. I'm coming back a bit to the point that Councillor Van Derweyr referred to. The whole of the major part of the development is dependent upon the DCO for the what treatment plan being approved. Now we'll assume that it will take place but maybe there's always a possibility that it might not. There's another aspect of it that you could not get which is also an uncertainty is that what it proposed is a bit largely car-free development with no additional traffic on Milton Road. In that sense it's somewhat experimental. It's a degree of active faith in this. We'll hope it would work but as we go through the development proceeds you may find that it's not as successful as you are and you may wish to review your plans. Does the commitment that we are into now still stand if either these sort of uncertainties take place? Would you continue with this commitment or what would be the situation in that position? John, can you answer that? The commitment is there. The tool is there whether it's used or not in the future and that would obviously depend on the eventual AAP. It's not something that I can comment on at this stage. What we are doing here is just ensuring that we have that tool in the toolbox and that we can therefore demonstrate that we are able and have the means if necessary to bring the land together in order for us to fulfil the AAP whatever that happens to be in the future following the decision of this council. It would be right to say that if the water treatment works does not move the whole thing fails and through the planning process it will be necessary for the issue that you've just raised in relation to traffic to be fully considered and dealt with. But that will come at a later stage. Well it might also relate to the fact that you may still wish to develop some Romanian parts of society. It's not the whole site which is the water treatment works and that question will need to be asked so it may still be necessary. But I don't suppose we can decide upon that unless we know what the future situation is going to be. Crystal ball has still got no fuel in it. Councillor Daunton. Thank you Chairman but my question has already been asked and answered. In that case, Stephen Kelly in the darkness. Thank you Chair. You have a candle Stephen. Well if I turn the interior light on it dazzles everything so sorry about that. Really I think just to stress the point that Councillor Williams made which is that this is a tool for the toolbox and clearly it doesn't predetermine whether or not there is a form of the AAP. It also in the event that the water treatment works project does not proceed. There may well be a need to think about a different strategy. But what we do know about the site is there is a complex land ownership situation and what the community have told us is that doing things in a joined up way is really important to them. And so this resolution isn't the end of it but it's about helping to reassure residents amongst many that when the council says where our vision is for a comprehensive joined up development that's exactly what we can deliver for them. And you know Councillor Williams has referred to the fact there are two councils here and complex ownership. And so I think to pick up on Councillor Khan's point clearly the way in which development in this area comes forward may evolve over time. But certainly what we're trying to do through this resolution is help the council to deliver on commitments that it makes rather than necessarily determining the outcome of the process at the planning process. So you know I hope that that offers some assurance that that it's not premature to do this. It's actually about strengthening confidence in delivery which which is an important message we've had from local residents. Thank you. This, I think a similar document was being presented to the city council strategy and resources scrutiny committee just a few days ago. Can you tell us what the outcome of that was please? I can, I attended. So yes, yes the committee voted in favour and agreed the recommendations, the same recommendations as to set out for overview and scrutiny and for cabinet here. That's helpful. Are there any other speakers? I have no other speakers members. Are we satisfied that we should recommend this going forward to cabinet and in due course we will understand the outcome. Thank you very much indeed. So let's move on to the next item on the agenda. Which is item 8, the work programme. I would really ask you just to take note of this but to bear in mind that our November meeting will have a fairly heavy agenda. There will be four major items on it. One of which is the referral of the planning performance review. The investment strategy, the empty home strategy and if it's ready the area action plan proposed submission and the asset management strategy. So we have suggested that a 4.30 start in view of the number of items on it is probably appropriate. I hope that everyone is able to make that and it's likely to be at the Guild Hall as well. Because this room will be subject to a lot of work that's going on at the time. So we'll be in the centre of Cambridge I'm afraid. I didn't quite catch the items that you said. On page 52 we've got planning performance review. You said the investment strategy for empty homes. Yes. I think the north of the area action plan is probably going back to December. The other is the asset management strategy, the HRI asset management strategy. So it will be a busy meeting, Councillor Daunton. Yes Chair, did you say that we were meeting in the Guild Hall? Guild Hall, yes. This room will not be available for us at that time. So we have to go to an alternative venue. With that, I believe that we have... Oh sorry, Councillor Payton. Thank you Chair. I wondered whether there was any room to talk about other work items that could be put on to the list. You approached me some time ago about Gypsy Roma and Traveller questions. I just wanted to raise that. When I was originally on the Scrutiny committee we set up a task group. There was a task and finish group that was suggested and then I had to step down and Nigel talk over the position on this committee and obviously Covid came along in the pandemic. Lots of things meant that it got delayed and delayed and delayed and it's just that I don't see it anywhere here. I just wondered given the training that both you and I attended around awareness around Gypsy Roma Traveller needs, whether that could be put back on to the work agenda with two particular focuses. I can tell you it will be coming forward in the new year. It will, okay. We have spoken, Councillor Rippeth and I have spoken with the chief executive and with the leader of the council. We have agreed that with a lot of work going on at the moment into the local plan, which of course will have a review into some of the aspects of that, that we would wait until we have got rather more clarity on the direction of travel there, but once we have that then we would take note of your request and get a task and finish group up and running once again. Thank you. With the opportunity to bring some recommendations forward. That's really good to hear. One request that when we're talking about it and when correspondents, it's not Gypsy Roma and Traveller issues. It's about meeting the needs of Gypsy Roma and Traveller community members who are resident in South Cambridgeshire. It's not that there's an issue, it's about meeting needs. Thank you. That's helpful. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, are there any other items anyone wishes to raise? In that case, at the remarkable time of 6.27, can I thank you all for your attendance and bring this meeting to a close and I wish you all a very safe journey home. Look forward to seeing you next month.